Penn State President Graham Spanier makes sure that he's involved "in the selection of every head coach" at the university, he said Friday.

While the athletics director, Tim Curley, makes the formal appointment of each new head coach, Spanier wants to "interview the person. I want to talk to them and make sure they know how we operate here.

"They need to hear from me that they will be fired if they intentionally violate a major rule," Spanier said.

His remarks came at the Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus, where he was speaking at a conference about land-grant universities.

Spanier, long considered a national leader in U.S. higher education, talked for nearly an hour at the Penn State-led conference, dubbed "The Legacy and the Promise: 150 Years of Land-Grant Universities."

About 80 people registered to attend the two-day event, featuring a variety of scholars' presentations on different elements of land-grant institutions. The best of their papers will be published next year, as the collegiate community marks the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act of 1862, conference co-Chairmen Roger Williams and Roger Geiger said.

The Morrill Act of 1862 enabled the development of land-grant universities -- including Penn State -- across the country, promoting higher education among people then called "industrial classes."

Spanier, speaking to a group of about 60 conference attendees Friday, touched on several subjects that he said are important to land-grant universities right now. He took questions from the audience, as well. Among his remarks:

• A philosophy that higher education is "more a private good than a public good" has emerged more popularly among a number of state-government leaders across the country, Spanier said.

"As a result, there is a growing sentiment that higher education benefits (only the) students and that the students and their families should pay an increased share of the cost of that education," he said. "So the share of our budgets that comes from public funds, from legislative appropriation, continues to decrease while tuition is becoming a greater source of income."

To that end, Spanier said, universities such as -- and including -- Penn State are "becoming increasingly private, relying more on tuition, self-supporting operations, hospital and clinic revenues, research grants and contracts from governmental entities as well as industry and philanthropy."

But many units "we have considered so fundamental to our land-grant activities," such as agricultural research and Cooperative Extension, rely almost exclusively on state monies. "And that is why a decreasing commitment from state government has significant implications -- particularly in this area," Spanier said.

• While federal land-grant legislation was "the single most important that's happened" for higher education, Spanier said, he perceives an erosion in the commitment to and understanding of the land-grant mission.

Even among some faculty members, Spanier said, there's a lack of knowledge about the mission.

"We can see the importance to our country. We can see the role that we've played ... in this marvelous invention of Cooperative Extension," he said, with the "we" referring to land-grant scholars. "We know the impact of that, but most people don't. And the commitment to that clearly has eroded out there."

• Spanier has long advocated a true tripartite approach in higher education, incorporating teaching, research and service, he said.

But land-grant institutions' foremost mission is undergraduate education -- a fact that too many faculty-member evaluations tend to give relatively short shrift to, he said. Evaluations are often weighted more heavily toward research performance, Spanier said.

"When I was a faculty member, I always remembered that I was employed by Penn State and what I did in the classroom was very important, and that had to come first," Spanier said. "I had to put my students first.

"I worry when you have some people -- ," he went on, then stopped short.

Spanier went on to talk about a case when a faculty member wanted to leave Penn State for an institution with a higher-ranked program in her field. She left her doctoral students at Penn State and the investments the university had made in her here, Spanier said, as she was "very focused on the prestige" of a higher-ranked department and would-be colleagues elsewhere.

"By the time I was done talking to her, I remember thinking to myself: 'I hope you go.' And she did," Spanier said. "Now (years later) we're ranked at No. 4 in the country" in her disciplinary field, up from No. 11 at the time she left.

Meanwhile, the institution where the faculty member landed remains in the same ranked it was when she arrived there: No. 7, Spanier said. He did not mention her by name.

"The reward system often works at odds with the overall institutional priorities," he said, referring again to internal faculty-member evaluations.

• With regard to athletics, Spanier said sports offer "a phenomenal opportunity to reach out to the public, to alumni.

"And if it's done well -- and I don't mean that if you're always winning everything, but if you have some reasonable degree of success competitively, (and) you operate the program with a lot of integrity, there are few things that are better for a university as a platform for doing good things and getting your messages out and having people feel pride in your institutions."

Spanier also said that he spends "a lot of time making sure that (athletics) operate properly" at the collegiate level. He has organized athletics at Penn State so that the athletics director reports directly to the president and sits on the president's internal council, he said.

That approach, Spanier said, allows more collaboration and integration involving athletics at Penn State, and ensures that the athletics director is fully aware of what's happening elsewhere in the university.

Earlier coverage

• Penn State Funding Cut Could Be Eased under House Legislation (June 24, 2011)